Seabreeze blue chairs tucked under white-clothed tables, fluttering in night ocean wind. Starry skies cresting glittery town, warmly nestled in embrace of mountain arm steady, holding off crashing waves that gentle into foamy rollings over dusk-dark sand. Hake and calamari plate, a Strand staple and Cape Town favorite. Sitting in ivory tower penthouse overlooking oceanfront view, am spoiled by missionary homestays. Heartfelt hospitality touches make past corporate exec suites seem like stale cold storage boxes. Ruminating over vinegared chips, capturing first impressions. Find am callow ignorant, stumbling into faith traditions great and long.
In few short days, in-depth peek at country once segregated by harsh lines apartheid — apart, by human hands and attributed to god. Yet He conquers the militant –pew warmers armed with fear, in fear, voting for self and known, sound familiar?– with the Truth of Love. A generation of Christians who rose in unison across decades to act out against injustice. Defiance, that can only be told in the personal. Heroism found in the faithful, like the law-breaking little old grandma, who took new friends into her home, bible studies, and heart, against the laws of her land that preached separation and dehumanization. And passed that heritage through to granddaughter disciple, who boldly crossed township lines, extending friendship and receiving friendship sharing one spirit in Christ, racial petty laws be damned.
The seeds of love sown leave a legacy that grow verdant Life where once were scars and walls. Am humbled by the stories and hearts have met. Against great giants of iniquity, arise a heritage of families willing to stand against poverty, corruption. Businesses building bridges across the economic divide, leveraging the power of revenue to become vehicles of prosperity, brotherhood, hope. Hospitality, a weapon of care and nurture that penetrate inner walls to cure the disease of separateness in patient hearts. Employees mentored to become owners. Bosses who must be just as much fathers as coaches to careerpath their hired flocks into life abundant. Rich guests, sequestered by wealth, diamond solitaires confining hearts solitary – these who are poorest in spirit ministered to richly by maids and bellboys, the true royalty at nation’s premier hotel. Concierge, to the soul.
Sojourning into a history and culture, to find that nothing is simply black and white, right and wrong. Rather, where fear confused and divided, love strengthened, forgiveness heals, peacemakers rebuild. I find Spirit presence and prophetic, in South Africa so strong that it is ordinary, making the complacency of my normal christian struggles back home seem like yoga-flavored candles when compared against Cape Town mountain wildfires.
May your Spirit burn yet brighter, beautiful land of protea.
#xordinaryproject
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